He was not a brawler, or vain,

But came up in a time and class

Where a youth of exceptional beauty

Had to prove himself — man to man —

Time and again. Nearsightedness

Made him half-blind; so at fourteen

He went stumbling to the optician

Who ground him his first pair of spectacles.

Amazed by the view, he walked the streets

’Til dark, taken by leaves, pebbles, and stars,

Then the grin of a bully who demanded:

Drop the “frog-eyes” or he’d die laughing!

And in that fight, the first thing broken

Was the miraculous invention

Of wire and glass that let him see

The world and the cost of clear vision —

Ground to dust in the streets of the old city.